Vehicle-installed information equipment, such as navigation devices that guide people from a current location to a destination and information providing devices that search for surrounding facilities, is now in widespread use. To utilize many functions of these devices, a latitude and a longitude of a destination need to be input, or a name of a facility associated beforehand with the latitude and the longitude needs to be input.
However, inputting the latitude, the longitude, and the name of the facility is complicated and also time-consuming. Furthermore, a partial-match search for the name of the facility has low accuracy of searching, so that a desired facility cannot be searched in some cases.
For such problems, a technology of predicting a destination using a travel route has been conceived. For example, Patent Document 1 discloses that a travel route is used to predict a destination visited with a high frequency as a destination candidate. Patent Document 2 discloses that a degree of similarity between a movement history and a current travel route is determined on the basis of route points to predict a destination with high accuracy. Patent Document 3 discloses that a degree of similarity between current travel information and past travel information is determined in consideration of differences in a departure point and a day of the week to predict a destination.
However, it is the problem that the above-mentioned technology of predicting the destination using the travel route fails to predict the destination with high accuracy at the stages before and immediately after start of the travel. An increase in the travel route allows for prediction with higher accuracy, but the need for predicting the destination is reduced after approaching the destination. It is also the problem that complicated probability calculation is needed.
As a way of easily setting a destination before start of travel, Patent Document 4 discloses a technology of setting a destination according to belongings. Patent Document 5 discloses a technology of switching a display order of destination candidates according to conditions of a vehicle, conditions outside the vehicle, or the like.